Philsland (in French) is a subscriber to an earthquake prevention alert: USGS earthquake. He was warned about the earthquake three hours before the waves touched the coasts:
“A great earthquake occurred at 00:58:49 (UTC) on Sunday, December 26, 2004. The magnitude 9.0 event has been located OFF THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA. (This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.)”
How amazing is this ? In three hours thousands of casualties could have been avoided if they were warned earlier. Now Internet is everywhere and especially where the tourists were staying, we could have avoided many deaths. What do you think, Robert ?
Update:
The Hindustantimes says India was not alerted by warning systems
“Within 15 minutes of the earthquake, scientists running the tsunami warning system for the Pacific had issued a cautionary from their Honolulu hub, to 26 participating countries. India was not among them.”
“The irony could not have been sharper. One of the people who helped set up the Pacific Tsunami Warning System and the Canadian Tsunami Warning System three decades ago was a Canada-based Indian, Tad Murty.”
” in spite of speeds of 400-500 miles per hour, it is possible to make warnings practicable.”
“Now attached to the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Murty says key equipment and computer models could have helped save thousands in southeast Asia on Sunday. He has personally taken up the issue of setting up a 24-hour tsunami warning system with the Indian government.”